Castle Fanfic: Pre-Emptive Measures or, I Don't Like Mondays
by CharacterDriven
Summary: AU. Crackfic. Fluff? It's Monday night, and some people will go to extreme lengths for a guilty pleasure. Kate Beckett is one of those people. Started writing this at 9:30 p.m., finished at 3:18 a.m., thank you Daylight Savings Time. Just to fill a void or prove to myself I can still write. Desperation is a dreadful thing.
**Started writing this in a fit of pique about 9:30 on a Castle-less Monday. Seriously if this show ever goes off the air, it's gonna be like having a tooth pulled out of my very soul. Every Monday, an appointment with the Oral Soul Surgeon. Soul Oral Surgeon? Whatever. Not like my soul has teeth. But you know. Of course you know. The only balm for our pain will be whatever someone writes next.**

* * *

 **Kate Beckett's Apartment, Monday March 14, 2016, 7:45 p.m.**

Kate Beckett wrestled with her keys, trying to tuck the Chinese takeout under her arm as she fumbled in the lock. She finally got into her apartment and staggered over to the island to drop off her dinner, then returned to the front door to pick up the heavy cardboard box. She had specified that someone (herself) was to be there to sign for it. She had wanted the delivery guy to carry it into the apartment for her. She had been so childishly trusting and naïve. How in hell had she ever become a cop?

"Lift with your legs," she reminded herself, so as not to put her back out again, and managed to heft the damn thing all the way to the coffee table before setting it down with a modicum of control.

She opened up the box. It was a new TV she'd ordered online. She pulled the TV out. Styrofoam blocks encased it like the hands of an eager lover, then fell away, bored with their job, which was definitely a familiar sensation.

"Lightweights," she muttered.

She spent five minutes unhooking her dead TV from the stereo, another twenty hooking the new set into the stereo, peered at the tiny, illegible directions, and rummaged around in the packaging for the remote, which was even more remote than she had expected.

Probably somewhere in Uzbekistan. Or maybe Hunan. Hong Kong? Wherever. It wasn't there. Not even remotely.

"Dammit!" she snapped. "Monday, do you have to keep being Monday?"

She found Blunder Buy's 800 number and dialed, wandering through a maze of voice mail for twenty minutes, listening to the first twenty bars of Rick Astley's _'Never Gonna Give You Up!'_ looping over, and over, and over. To sustain herself, she ate chicken chow fun with extra broccoli and made smartass remarks to the recording that blared over her speaker phone.

"Thank you for calling. We don't need your pathetic business. Your wait is approximately eleven hours 37 minutes, and twenty-three seconds." "Thanks you for your patience. We're here to make your life a living hell." "If you would like to speak with a real person, please hang up, go downstairs, and offer a homeless person a bottle of tequila." "Please do not blow your own head off without listening to our menu, which has changed." "If you would like to leave a message, please wait for the sound of your own head exploding, and be sure to have your authorization code ready."

"Hell with this!" she seethed, and ended the call. She unplugged and stuffed the TV back into its carefully molded shell – which no longer seemed to fit around the TV or into the box – and pulled her farmer's market shopping cart out of the closet. The cart was old; she'd gotten it from her mom, and it was slightly twisted so that it steered itself slightly to the right, like Senator Bracken at a conservative fundraising luncheon, squealing like a weasel all the way to the bank. He was possibly an even worse candidate than all the others combined... which made him so very likely to win the presidency.

She plopped the TV on top at a precarious angle and wheeled it out of her apartment, into the elevator, and then to her car in the building's basement garage, the squeaky wheel going ungreased the whole way along.

* * *

 **Blunder Buy StopNShop Centre, Queens, 9:07 p.m.**

Kate's car pulled into a crowded strip mall parking lot in Queens. She parked, then wrested the shopping cart and TV from her trunk's clutches, and wheeled it into Blunder Buy's last brick-and-mortar store on the Eastern seaboard.

The security guard, a burly man with a bit of squish around the middle, looked her TV up and down with little interest – why would he have any? - and then pointed off to the side with a meaty thumb. The line at the Returns counter was twelve people deep.

"Oh, great," Kate sighed. "Suppose I'll get out of here before the zombie apocalypse?"

The guard shrugged. Then her comment seemed to sink in, and his rather sad, square face suddenly was suddenly transformed by crinkling blue eyes. The guard had a really nice voice, the sort of voice you'd hear from a news announcer or a soldier in a video game. "For your convenience, you will wait in line for forty-five minutes, only to be told that for your _further_ convenience, they are out of stock of the part you need and you'll have to order it online anyway. Please wait to be consumed by zombies until you have reached the parking lot. Thanks, and have a great day."

He seemed a little familiar, and Kate couldn't help giving him a humorless, beleaguered smile. At least he was trying. She looked at the line dubiously, then down at the TV coming half-out of its torn box.

"Hardly seems like it's worth the trouble."

"Yeah, but ma'am, you blew 300 bucks on it."

"That I did. Three hundred and twenty."

"The next hour of your life should be worth more than that."

Caught unawares by the sudden dive into philosophy, Kate was about to say, "That's debatable," but at that moment, a kid in a hoodie went barreling past the guard, who swore, "Oh, hell, here we go again." He set after Hoodie Kid with surprising speed, but Kate, who hadn't forgotten her police training even though that had been a long time ago, simply stuck out a foot and the kid went sprawling.

The security guard glanced at her in surprise. "Wow." He gently hauled the kid up to a stand, and with hands the size of bear paws, restrained the kid's skinny shoulders, then bent to look him right in the eye.

"You've been coming in here since you were in middle school. Would you rather we call the cops or your mom?" he said.

The kid quailed, and Kate suddenly realized that this man, underneath the cozy teddy-bear padding, was both powerful and slightly intimidating.

"I didn't do nothing," the kid said.

"Well, you just used a double-negative. So, we are not off to the best start."

"I didn't do anything."

"Better. Now, want me to call NYPD down to search your pockets? We have security cams all over the place."

"Actually," Kate said, "I'm NYPD."

"Really?" The guard and the boy spoke at the same time, and they both gave her that same look. Skepticism. Both thinking, _"Nice-eyes-pretty-face-needs-to-lose-80-pounds-and-please-never-wear-yoga-pants-in-public-again."_

"Yeah," Kate huffed, and rummaged in her purse. She pulled out her badge. "I mean, I'm just in dispatch now, but I'm an officer. Got my little badge and everything."

"Huh," said the security guard. "What do you know?"

Kate winced, unsure whether he was impressed or practicing advanced sarcasm. She spoke to the guard. "Also, you kind of need a warrant. And permission to search." The kid shot her a grateful look. "So," Kate added, "Yeah. You'll have to call his mom."

The kid quavered, "I just needed a flash drive 'cause I have a project due in history and we don't have internet and we don't have any money left for the week and I can't buy it on food stamps."

"When?"

"Tomorrow. 8 a.m."

"Let me see it," said the guard.

Looking like he was about to cry, the kid pulled a shiny item out of his pocket. It was a chrome, spaceship-shaped novelty flash drive.

Kate said, "I've always wanted one of those. I'll pay for it."

"No you won't," said the guard. "You're a guest." He pulled out his wallet. "It's $12.95, plus tax. Keep the change."

He handed the money and the flash drive to the kid.

"And I want you to mail me a graded copy of that report. With an A on it." He handed the kid a card out of his wallet.

The kid took it without a glance. "Uh. Okay."

The kid shambled over to the cash register line, hunched in embarrassment. The guard called after him: "For your convenience, the line is twelve deep, and there is one cashier available. If you are caught cutting in line, you will be forcibly ejected from the premises at such speed that your mother will have to fish you out of Central Park Lake with a pair of salad tongs." The guard turned to Kate and murmured. "You think that's punishment enough?"

Kate chuckled. "He could be eighteen by the time the clerk gets to him, so yeah."

The guard gestured down to Kate's plump leg in her structurally compromised yoga pants and decrepit worn Keds, and said, "That was quite a move."

"Oh," Kate shifted her weight a little to redistribute it. "I still remember a little from my beat." In truth, the kid had bruised her shin a little, but she didn't care. She'd been surprised that her reflexes kicked in after fourteen years behind a desk. She hadn't darkened the gym's doors in five years, and it showed, although she did yoga once in a while and was reasonably strong even though she got winded whenever she took the stairs. Oh well, maybe tomorrow. She was only 36. If she lost two pounds for every year of her life... in eighteen months or so, she'd be in great shape. And then she might be able to solve her mom's murder...

She vaguely realized he was speaking to her, and when she glanced at him, his raised eyebrow interrupted her calculations. "You were a beat cop?"

"For a while. Then vice. Then homicide."

His face asked what his words did not: _"What the hell happened?"_ She didn't volunteer the information: The obsession. The bad performance reviews for insubordination and lone-wolf actions under Montgomery's nose. The breakdown. The hospitalization. The meds that didn't work. Rehab. Meds that did work but made her gain weight like crazy. The demotion. The desk job. Worst of all, the break room pastries and jet-fuel flavored coffee with sugar and powdered imitation creamer. The pizza and burgers and leftover sandwiches from the conference room and the goddamn, inescapable, delectable cronuts that could never fill the empty place behind her solar plexus.

Instead of addressing her obvious failings as a cop or her plethora of visible flaws, he said, "Homicide. Wow. That's kind of hot."

Her face flamed with embarrassment. "I'm in dispatch now. It's a lot safer, and I get off by seven. Most days."

His smile was a little rueful, glancing around the ugly, fluorescent-lit store. "Wish I did. But nobody's home, so it's a moot point. My daughter's gone off to college."

"You have a daughter?"

He nodded, his eyes alight. "She's amazing. Third year at Stanford."

"Really? I went there. Just for a year. Great school."

He nodded. "So I hear."

She waved an apologetic hand toward the Returns line. "Well, I need to..."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." He waved her on. "Thanks for the help with our little miscreant over there."

"' _Miscreant?'"_ she tweaked an eyebrow at him.

"I like to play Scrabble," he said.

" _'Delinquent'_ gets a much higher score. Or _'Scofflaw'_ ," she replied.

He shrugged cynically. "Yeah. Good luck getting a C and two Fs in one turn."

For a moment they froze awkwardly, thinking about what exactly " _a C and_ _two Fs in one turn"_ might mean to a person with a prurient mind. He managed to choke out, "That... I did not mean what... that might have meant. Sounded. Like."

Kate barely nodded, wondering if he was trying to flirt with her or if she was just imagining it, and if it had just been so long since she'd gotten laid that she found a security guard attractive. "It's...okay." She quirked a last little smile at him, and rolled her shopping card (squeak, squeak, squeeeeee) over the echoing polished linoleum to the Returns line, which now had seventeen people in it. Oh, great. She was the last.

It was past 9:20 when the clerk finally got to her. "Hi, I'm Emily. How may I make your Blunder Buy Retail Experience special today?"

"I need to exchange this TV. It came without a remote."

Emily looked at the paperwork and the shipping label, and looked at Kate's I.D. "Katherine Beckett... Kate Beckett. Is that the same person?"

"Yes. Kate is a nickname. For Katherine."

"Oh. Okay. Address matches. Good. And you purchased it online? Do you have an RMA?"

"RMA? No."

"That means Return Merchandise Authorization."

"I know. No, I don't have one. I don't want to return it, really, I just want the remote that comes with it."

"I'm sorry, we cannot accept a return without an RMA from our corporate offices in Rapid City South Dakota, which close at 6 p.m. mountain time."

"I couldn't get through to corporate on the phone. Can't I just return it? I have all the paperwork. Then I can just buy another TV. Or you could give me the remote from another box of the same model."

"I'm sorry, we can't do that. Each remote is matched to an individual television set to avoid hacking problems and security breaches. I'm happy to take your exchange television here, but we don't have an equivalent replacement in stock."

"You don't?"

"I'm sorry Ma'am." Emily tapped away at a touch screen, and frowned at it, looking genuinely sorry. "And we won't be getting it in till next Tuesday."

"Next Tuesday?" Kate sighed. So she'd be missing two weeks unless she figured out another place to watch her one stupid guilty pleasure. "Look, maybe there's something in the back? I only watch one show a week, I can just get home to watch it at 10 if I leave now, I don't even have a DVR. I just... just, come on. Can you swap something of lesser value?"

"I'm sorry Ma'am, but..."

"Can I pay the difference on something more expensive?"

"I'm so sorry, Ma'am, but I really can't without an RMA."

"Can you lend me something?"

"No, Ma'am, I'm afraid that's not Blunder Buy's policy."

Kate spoke very kindly. "Thank you. I know you've really tried to help me. May I please speak to the manager?"

Emily nodded, relieved to have the problem removed from her little minimum-wage shoulders. The manager wore head-to-toe polyester and a clip-on Blunder Buy tie. An oily, beady-eyed fellow, he rather resembled that blueberry muffin/chihuahua dog puzzle Kate saw online every few weeks. He smelled like antifungal powder and dyspepsia, and when he began to speak, Kate stepped back a little to avoid the fine spray emitting from his mouth. "Hello, Ma'am, my name is Aaron, and I'm your in-store Customer Satisfaction Ambassador."

"Hello, Aaron. I'm Kate Beckett. Here's my paperwork for this purchase." She presented it all to him and explained about the missing remote, keeping her voice pleasant and professional. She had a beautiful voice, and she knew it. She had used it to calm thousands of people on the dispatch switchboard, everything from terrified children to enraged killers, potential suicides, and traumatized people who'd just found bodies or were afraid of their own imminent death. Kate had known trauma, and she knew how to help others through it. But all her calming skills and dulcet voice were no match for the petulant little skink that was Aaron the Customer Satisfaction Ambassador.

He was growing progressively damper and more shrill, having repeated several variants on "In order to keep our great prices super-low, we can only exchange damaged or defective merchandise purchased online for exactly the same make and model at the same price point, unless we have full Return Merchandise Authorization, also known as an RMA, from corporate headquarters."

"So I'm just stuck with this stupid, no-remote TV, until such time as...?"

"Until such time as we have acquired the appropriate stock with which to replace your electronic device, provided that you have an RMA, or Returned Merchandise Authorization."

Kate glared at him, wordless. This was the Gaze of Imminent death that her mom had learned from her Nonna, and passed along. Some day, if she were ever lucky enough to have a daughter, that girl would possess the same gimlet stare, and grown men would tremble before it, and empires would fall.

Aaron was starting to waver. Voice cracking, he said, "Well, Ma'am... I mean Miss..."

" _Officer_ Beckett. NYPD. Central dispatch." Then she said, very sweetly, "I'm the one who makes the cops show up. Or not."

"Office - er. Officer Beckett. I could shave a bit off the 20% restocking fee."

" _Restocking_ fee?"

"Yes, as stated clearly in your online order..." he pointed a chewed fingernail at the fine print, "There is a 20% restocking fee if you return an item. I can take it down to 15% as a courtesy." He looked like a monk invoking saintly protection, benevolent and wise. "Customer service is our utmost goal."

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Kate narrowed her eyes and leaned forward on the counter. "Are you sure RMA doesn't stand for 'Recalcitrant Management A...'?" she stopped herself before the _sshole_ could get her into trouble. It wouldn't do her career any good to get pulled in for cussing out a chihuahua. Or a blueberry muffin.

Aaron picked up the public address mic, and his cracking voice blared through the empty store. "Security? We have a situation. Security."

"Right over here, Aaron." Security had, of course, been standing twenty feet away behind Kate, apparently fascinated by the proceedings. Kate's facial complexion adjusted like a camouflaging octopus, from "Irritated Coral" to "Enraged Garibaldi Fish". The guard sauntered over on long legs.

Kate snapped at Aaron, "What are you gonna do, have... Rick here detain me because I want my money back?" She felt kind of bad for the guard. It wasn't his fault that Aaron was an asshat. And she should have known better than to escalate the situation.

The security guard stood next to Kate, leaning his elbows on the counter. "What seems to be the trouble, Ma'am?" There was an infuriating glint of amusement in his eye. And maybe something else.

Dammit. She'd almost liked him. Confounded, Kate spluttered, " _Officer_. Officer Beckett. I cannot believe this place. This is the worst... most appallingly inept..."

"Most egregiously deleterious," said the security guard. His contribution wasn't helping. Also the way he formed the letter L with his tongue was so... intriguing.

She thought, _"What the hell is wrong with me?"_ She snapped back, "Most infuriating, baffling, ..."

His crooked little smile played around each word he suggested. "Frustrating, useless..."

"Irritating, counterproductive..."

Her mouth clamped shut to bite down on her annoyance, Kate stared at the security guard, and it occurred to her that _he was actually taking her side_. This was even more confusing.

Smirking, he continued, "Obstructive, labyrinthine, Orwellian... Look, Aaron," he said. "No matter how deeply into the thesaurus I delve, there will never be enough words to describe how crappy this job truly is. I quit."

With true glee, he took off his Security Guard vest and placed his badge and taser on the counter. "Here ya go. Booh-yeah."

Aaron the Customer Satisfaction Ambassador warbled, "Well, Richard, you're... I'll have to contact our Corporate Offices... this will go on your record..."

"What. You mean I'm fired? Double-dog fired? Fine. Just mail my final check. Just remember though, there's a paper trail. Last Thursday you let that little blonde with the enhanced hooters exchange a knockoff for a brand-name three times the original value. It'll show up in inventory."

Aaron's eyes bulged and slid around in his face like blueberries in muffin batter.

The guard continued, speaking quite softly now. "The BJ she gave you on the loading dock behind the dumpster?"

"Yeah?" breathed Aaron.

"That little interlude is right there in the security footage. But the returned TV won't show up in the RMA cross-check report, now will it?"

Aaron turned white, his mouth flapped like a carp's, and little Emily, the cashier, gave him the side-eye then stepped toward the phone, dialing the After Hours Corporate Hotline. The speaker phone said, "Thank you for calling. Your projected wait time is one minute and thirty seconds. Please enjoy the music while you wait for the next available Corporate Regulation Enforcement Administrator." Then synthesized string music, and the ubiquitous Rick Astley's reverberating voice: _"Never gonna give - never gonna give - never gonna give -"_

The guard turned to Kate. "And now, before we are RickRolled any further, we have a show to catch." He offered his elbow, and she hesitated, maybe a little too long, surprised by the hope in his piercing blue eyes. The whole situation was ludicrous. Everyone knew that rent-a-cops were total losers. She thought, _"Any moment now he's gonna say something really creepy, right?"_ But he didn't _feel_ creepy. She had good instincts, most of the time. He tilted his chin, and despite being a bit older and even squishier around the middle than she was, the effect was both melodramatic and deliciously electric. "Are you coming, my dear? Murder mystery, Monday night, 10 pm?"

It just popped out: "Lead on." Riding on the sheer thrill of his bravado, Kate linked her hand around his impressive bicep, and they strode away from the Returns desk, arm in arm, as Rick Astley sang of undying devotion over the voicemail speaker phone.

Aaron scuttled after them, flapping like a lovestruck heron. "You, you, you need to turn in your keys."

"So I do." The guard used his key to open the locked front door, then tossed it to the speechless manager, who caught the key and dropped it. The doors slid open before them, and closed behind them with a relieved sigh. Aaron hastily locked the door.

Outside under the plastic Blunder Buy awning, the guard said, "If we're lucky, neither of us will ever hear that song again." He took off the crappy security guard hat and tossed it into a door-side trash bin. He then ran a hand through his hair, which mussed out rather wildly for a moment then seemed to magically rearrange itself into charming near-perfection, with silver glints among the soft brown.

Kate paused a moment at the front entry, her sad, deep-hazel eyes searching his face. She had high cheekbones and a little beauty mark under her eye, and her hair, although it was pulled back severely from her face, was soft and wavy and trying to escape. In the amber glow of the parking lot's sodium lamps, wearing a draped tunic that skimmed the full curve of her breasts and hips, she looked to his eye like an ancient warrior goddess. Maybe Athena. Only without the owl. And with sneakers instead of gladiator sandals.

She let go of his arm, then missed his warmth immediately. "How did you know? About the TV show?"

"Lucky guess. Also I'm a fan. Hey, do you know the Old Haunt? Downtown?"

Kate nodded. "Been a decade. Can't believe it's still there." She'd gone in once, long ago, to collect her dad a year before he'd sobered up for the last time.

The guard said, "It's had a discreet remodeling over the past few years, and they have a widescreen TV back of the bar. If you push the speed limit, we can meet there in time to watch the opening murder. If you like. Public place. Nice people. It's not a cop bar, though."

"Um - I didn't even catch your name."

He hesitated, then faced her squarely, a hand out to shake. "Richard Castle." That was why he'd seemed so familiar, yet she couldn't place the context.

Her mouth opened and shut in surprise. She shook his hand, and just as she remembered from her first book signing, 22 years ago, his two large paws dwarfed her own between them. "Kate Beckett."

He let her hand go, because he wanted to hold onto it, and that would hardly be appropriate. He said, "Officer Beckett. Good to meet you."

She had to ask. "You're the _writer_? Flowers for your Grave?" She tried to hide the confusion and disappointment in her voice. And the long-dead fangirl thrill that had slumbered in her heart since her mother's death.

He nodded regretfully. "I'm the idiot that killed off Derrick Storm due to a lost bout with epic stupidity." At her skeptical glance, he admitted, "That picture on the back of the last book is pretty old." He cleared his throat. "And so am I."

"You're not _that_ old." He smiled gratefully, and she gestured an invitation to keep walking with her. "But you haven't published in ages. Have you?"

He shrugged sadly and looked up for the stars, invisible in the haze of urban light. "The Muse has evaded me this last decade... or so. Writer's block can be such a bitch."

"So can I, yet you seem to be able to cope," Kate grinned. She glanced back at the store, and said without regret, "Oops. Forgot my TV." They looked back through the glass doors just in time to see the shopping cart fall over, and Kate's erstwhile TV crashing to the floor with fragments and Styrofoam bits flying everywhere. The crash was muffled, but the visual was pretty spectacular, especially with Aaron hopping up and down on one foot, screaming. Kate gasped in a mix of horror and amusement.

Rick chuckled, "Do you want to go back for the pieces? I know a guy who makes musical instruments out of busted electronics and squeaky wheels."

"No, that's okay," she said. "I can have the credit card company sort it all out, and they may want the salvage rights." They turned away and kept walking. "Why were you working security at this dump?"

"Research."

"Research of what? _'Search for the Red Stapler?'_ "

"It's kind of a lame premise, but... How's this: Former CIA operative has a severe injury and, struggling to make ends meet, becomes a down-on-his-luck security guard who uncovers a massive conspiracy when he meets a beautiful woman."

"That sounds a little far-fetched," said Kate.

"Oh," said Rick. "You have no idea. But it's all I've got right now."

Now they were at her car. She said, "Old Haunt?"

He nodded. "If you get there before me, I know the bartender. His name's Brian. Tell him I sent you."

She said, "Oh, I will. I still drive like a cop even though I'm just a dispatcher."

"That's okay," he said. "I drive like a writer."

"How so?"

"Full throttle 90% of the way, followed by 30% of trying to figure out where I took a wrong turn."

She laughed. "Well, you're definitely not a mathematician. But if your calculations were correct, you'd never have written a single best seller."

He had, hadn't he? Too long ago. It was nice that someone remembered.

They took separate cars to the Old Haunt. She was just about to pass the bar when some nitwit in a red Ferrari screeched out of a parking place right across the street, and skidded away around the corner to vanish from sight. What amazing timing, to find a parking space on the same block.

 **The Old Haunt, 10:01 P.M.**  
A few minutes later, Castle arrived to find her sitting at the bar, chatting like old friends with the bartender. The TV was already on and switched to the right station, but the sound was on mute, and he hoped Prancing with the Stars was winding down. Brian had already set out a glass of his favorite single-malt.

Castle glanced at Kate's drink. He said, "Black Russian?"

She looked down at herself, then spoke in a drop-dead sexy Russian accent. "Am sorry to disappoint. You expect the 'vodka and pierogis' type of girl?"

He said, "Well, they haven't invented a drink called 'Stone Fox Unicorn Goes Out On A Monday To Return a TV Without an RMA'', so a Black Russian seems like a good alternative."

Kate found herself actually giggling. When had she last giggled? Sometime in 2014. It had involved an internet kitten video.

The TV announcer said, "On tonight's special two-hour episode of Prancing with the Stars, will Nathan and Stana finally iron out their rivalry on the dance floor? Or will this be the end of their tempestuous eight-year... 'partnership'? Let's let the judges decide!"

Kate Beckett rolled her eyes. "Ugh. I hate reality programming." She sighed, defeated. "After all that trouble, too!"

Rick's expression echoed her own. "If I wanted reality, I'd turn off the TV."

" _Oh well."_ Kate thought. _"Finish your drink. Time to head home."_ She took a healthy swig. She didn't drink often, but one Black Russian would barely give her a buzz, so she wasn't worried about driving.

Castle signaled Brian, who switched the TV off and put some music on: Louis Armstrong - first with the soft trumpet melody - La Vie En Rose.

Rick looked sidelong at Kate.

"You know, reality has a lot going for it."

She smiled sadly, and took a sip of her drink, then bit her lower lip. Maybe his reality did. He was going to say goodnight. It had been a silly idea, anyway, to meet up in a bar and watch TV with a stranger.

He said, "I hear the Old Haunt has a game room down in the basement."

"Really?" She sat up in surprise.

He nodded, arose, and went to a particular spot on the floor, then activated a hidden lever. A trap door opened, and he gave her a very fetching smile indeed.

"Care to play Scrabble, Officer Beckett?"

Kate nodded. "I don't mind if I do." Her face lit up like a sunrise.

She followed him down the stairs, and into the future. And he was right.

She'd had no idea.


End file.
